|
“Word of Mouth”, or the recommendation of someone you trust, is likely the one of the single most powerful motivators of behavior. We all know that what our customers say about our company is far more influential than messaging crafted by marketing. Social Media, when you boil it down to it simplest form serves to amplify the impact of Word of Mouth marketing. It does this by serving as a forum to every prospect and customer who cares enough to participate. The power of Social Media to spread the experiences of your customers is stronger than ever.
Generating positive word of mouth is an investment that can build trust with prospects and customers. The single most valuable asset your company can develop is the trust your customers place with you. It is likely more important than the features of your product or service. This trust can support Demand Generation by stimulating recommendations and highly qualified leads. Squander the trust and the risk irreparable harm to your company’s brand as unhappy customers spread their complaints. No amount of marketing budget can overcome the mistreatment of customers. Customer service is an investment in building trust with your customers. Companies such as Zappos and Southwest Airlines demonstrate proactive customer service, where they seek feedback and opportunities to help customers. Zappos doesn’t have discount prices, but it guarantees customer satisfaction. This focus on excellent customer service becomes powerful differentiator and can grow existing customers into your best salespeople. Unfortunately, many companies treat customer service as an expense and outsource it. Call centers where problems that aren’t easy to solve via a scripted conversation are bound for failure. Remember the “United Airlines Breaks Guitars” fiasco? Its cost was estimated to run up to 10% of United Airlines market capitalization. Social Media gives power and a voice to the customer. Smart companies use it to listen, interact, and help customers and prospects.
1 Comment
B2B marketing has emerged to as a specialty that is treated as distinctly different from B2C marketing. This is based on the premise that B2C marketing is characterized by consumer goods like food products and services (restaurants). Marketing for Subway as a smart alternative to MacDonald’s is vastly different than marketing cloud solutions to IT buyers. No duh!
The purchase process for consumer electronics (laptops, tablets, and smartphones) in addition to high value items like automobiles is, however, very similar to the IT purchase process. Consider the following factors: 1. Length of the Purchase Process – The time invested in making a decision to buy a new car or laptop is often measured in months. This is the case unless consumers are forced into making a quick decision, (the transmission has fallen out of your old car or your laptop was stolen). The average purchase cycle reported for IT decisions has dropped dramatically in the past couple of years…to around 6 months. 2. Average Deal Size - Investment of hundreds or thousands of dollars makes consumers consider the purchase carefully before making a decision. 3. Number of Decision Makers – Few IT buyers makes a purchase decision without consulting business users. Like it or not, your spouse (or even your kids) may have significant influence on your next car or laptop. No self-respecting teen will support mom’s temptation to purchase another mini-van. 4. Higher Risk Decision – The purchase process for b2b and high tech consumer goods is longer because it is a higher risk decision. It the b2b IT decision maker makes a poor choice, it reflects poorly on him/her. Business users may point fingers. This is not so different than choosing what car to drive for the next 48 months. Who wants to listen to their spouse complain for 48 straight months. Who wants to live with a laptop that doesn’t meet your needs? 5. Role of Content Marketing is paramount in higher risk decisions. Shoppers will seek information from multiple sources to support their decision process. They will seek out expert commentary, independent comparisons, specifications, and pricing. I spent nearly ten years in marketing at Nissan North America. We analyzed the purchase cycle for our products and those of our competitor’s. We had a plethora of syndicated data to analyze and learn from. We designed marketing campaigns to strategically “plug the leaks” in our purchase funnel. I applied the same principles in high-tech B2B marketing. Google analytics, CRM tools like Salesforce.com, and marketing automation tools give B2B users similar data. In a recent Pardot survey, many B2B marketers claim the lack of time and resources make tracking marketing performance difficult. The good news: 80% of B2B marketers claim that they will invest more time and resources in marketing metrics in 2012. |
AuthorPhyllis Stewart- Archives
April 2015
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
